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Home > Archive > General Discussion > May 2002 > Privacy leak in Windows Media Player
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Privacy leak in Windows Media Player
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| Pavlov 2002-05-23, 8:22 am |
| thanks for the link. It's little tips like these that keep me coming back.  | |
| 4tech 2002-05-23, 10:13 am |
| Great hint!
Now only if it was that simple to get rid of spam email. | |
| cross36 2002-05-23, 11:43 am |
| I'm agreeing with 4tech. Especially AOL, the king of spamnation! | |
| exar07 2002-05-23, 12:57 pm |
| I am not surprised that it does that. Personally I feel that most software nowadays have some type of tracking tricks in the background. | |
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| Winamp has a tracking feature too. If you go into taskmanager after you start winamp you will see two processes winamp.exe and winampa.exe. Kill winampa.exe, winamp will still run fine. | |
| Boulware5 2002-05-23, 4:11 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by tj
Winamp has a tracking feature too. If you go into taskmanager after you start winamp you will see two processes winamp.exe and winampa.exe. Kill winampa.exe, winamp will still run fine.
About winampa.exe:
It's a background task from Winamp which has two purposes : on the one hand it provides the Winamp System Tray icon, and on the other it maintains file associations so that other applications do not take over file associations which Winamp normally handles. As a System Tray icon Winamp is rarely used; most users use Winamp through double-clicking on an MP3 file rather than through actually starting it through Start \ Programs. Therefore, for most users there is no need for a Tray icon which just adds to the clutter. More worryingly, in our experience WINAMPA seems to cause unexplained crashes in Netscape and Internet Explorer, and a few other programs. Disabling WINAMPA totally seemingly gets rid of the crashes.
Recommendation :
Disable Winamp Agent in Winamp itself. Click on the top left corner of Winamp, then choose "Options \ Preferences", then "Setup \ Agent" in the left bar, then take the tick OFF "Enable Winamp Agent" and all sub-options on the right-hand side. Click CLOSE. Close Winamp. Reboot your PC.
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It doesn't seem like a tracking device (although maybe it really is)...But as this says it can lead to crashes. | |
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| Musicmatch also has one. Through options and settings, just uncheck the option to send them info. | |
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| quote:
Originally posted by Boulware5
About winampa.exe:
It's a background task from Winamp which has two purposes : on the one hand it provides the Winamp System Tray icon, and on the other it maintains file associations so that other applications do not take over file associations which Winamp normally handles. As a System Tray icon Winamp is rarely used; most users use Winamp through double-clicking on an MP3 file rather than through actually starting it through Start \ Programs. Therefore, for most users there is no need for a Tray icon which just adds to the clutter. More worryingly, in our experience WINAMPA seems to cause unexplained crashes in Netscape and Internet Explorer, and a few other programs. Disabling WINAMPA totally seemingly gets rid of the crashes.
Recommendation :
Disable Winamp Agent in Winamp itself. Click on the top left corner of Winamp, then choose "Options \ Preferences", then "Setup \ Agent" in the left bar, then take the tick OFF "Enable Winamp Agent" and all sub-options on the right-hand side. Click CLOSE. Close Winamp. Reboot your PC.
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It doesn't seem like a tracking device (although maybe it really is)...But as this says it can lead to crashes.
However, winamp does also access the internet. I know this because my firewall sends off a message saying "Do you want to allow winamp to access the internet" As far as I can tell disabling winamp agent cures this problem. |
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